How road salt affects your car

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(WJLA) - With all the snow and ice we’ve seen this winter, another common sight is road salt – everywhere. Other than covering your car in a white film, how does the salt actually affect your vehicle?

The salt is everywhere and it’s slowly eating away at your car.

“Rust, my concern is the rust,” says Herbert Sanchez. “I don’t want rust to get on the paint.”

The wintry, icy weather we’ve been suffering through has forced local jurisdiction to spread an unusually large amount of salt throughout the region. The District alone has dumped 25 tons of salt on streets over the past few weeks. The salt helps cut through the ice and snow, but that’s not all.

Raffi Jarian owns a C&D auto body shop in College Park. He’s seeing cars come in with early signs of salt damage not only to the exterior, but to the undercarriage.